ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WALCOTT. 7 



To the report of one of our Committees, not _yet a permanent 

 organization, though I hope the Societj' will soon so constitute it, 

 I invite especial attention. I mean the newly-formerl Committee 

 on AViudow Gardening. With small expenditure of money, but 

 with a generous outlay of personal activity, the members of this 

 Committee have accomplished a year's work which reflects credit 

 upon themselves and cannot fail to have an influence of the best 

 sort upon the children who have been stimulated in that natural 

 love of growing plants common to all. 



The meetings for discussion have been well attended and the 

 topics under consideration have been carefully chosen, well pre- 

 sented, and profitably debated. A paper read at the meeting of 

 March 12 treated a subject not before brought to our notice. 

 The Progress of Commercial Floriculture was set forth by a 

 member of this Society fully competent to discuss the subject in 

 all its bearings. 



The great commercial importance of this interest was made 

 quite manifest, and there should, it seems to me, be no hesita- 

 tion on the part of the Society in encouraging by all practicable 

 methods the improvement and extension of an industfy so closely 

 related not only to the purposes of our organization but also to 

 the more attractive features of our lives and surroundings. 



Complaint is made, and oftentimes justly, of the unattractive 

 and tasteless manner in which flowers are used for decorative or 

 memorial purposes. Would it not be possible to do something to 

 improve popular taste by offering a special prize or prizes of suffi- 

 cient value to excite an eager competition for arrangements of 

 flowers with reference more especially to the artistic value of the 

 decoration. Were this done, it would, I think, be advisable to 

 invite some persons of generally recognized authority in matters 

 of taste, but not of necessit}' members of this Society, to act as 

 judges. 



Though it is a reasonable objection to this plan, that the flower 

 decorations of any given community will be good or bad in a 

 direct relation to the good or bad taste of those making use of 

 them, and that the florist will supply only that which his customer 

 is willing to buy, still the exhibition, as above proposed, would 

 undoubtedly have some influence for improvement and would at 

 least give us valuable information. 



But few novelties of unusual merit have been presented at the 



